Walter, youngest daughter of Gibbs Sibley of Sutton, Massachusetts. His only daughter, Hannah Jane, married, in 1874, Frederick Locker, poet and Shakespearean collector, who assumed the additional name of Lampson. His son, George Curtis, born in London on 13 June 1833, succeeded to the baronetcy.
[Illustrated London News, 1865, xlix. 545, 556 with portrait. Appleton's American Biog. 1857.iii. 602; Foster's Baronetage, 1885. p. 375; Times, 13 March 1865, p. 10.]
LANCASTER, Dukes of. [See Henry of Lancaster, 1299–1361; John of Gaunt, 1340–1399.]
LANCASTER, EDMUND, Earl of (1245–1296), called Crouchback, second son of Henry III [q. v.] and his queen Eleanor of Provence, was born on 16 Jan. 1245, and in May 1254 was taken by his mother into France, where he remained until December. Early in that year Henry accepted on his behalf the offer of Pope Innocent IV to invest him with the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia, and in May he was styled king of Sicily. Alexander IV confirmed the grant in April 1255 on certain burdensome conditions, Edmund declaring himself a vassal of the holy see, and Henry promising to pay the pope 135,540 marks expended on the war with the Hohenstaufen house. Cardinal Ubaldini was sent to England by the pope with a ring with which on 18 Oct. he invested Edmund with the kingdom. The scheme was unpopular in England, and the demands of the king and the pope for money to carry it out were the chief cause of the king's future troubles with the barons. In spite of the large sums sent over to Italy by Henry, and the strenuous efforts of the pope, the attempt to drive Manfred out of southern Italy was completely unsuccessful. Probably to stimulate English zeal, a letter was sent from Rome in 1257 warning the king that assassins had been commissioned by Manfred to slay him and his sons Edward and Edmund. In the Lent parliament, at which Henry made fresh demands for money, he exhibited Edmund in Apulian dress. It was evident that the pope's scheme was doomed to failure, and Henry instructed ambassadors to propose Innocent that the quarrel should be arranged by means of a marriage between Edmund and the daughter of Manfred. In the summer of 1258, when the government appointed in accordance with the provisions of Oxford was in power, the barons wrote to the pope repudiating the Sicilian scheme. However, in January 1360, Henry who had taken Edmund with him to Paris in the preceding November, informed the Archbishop of Messina that he was about to prosecute the with greater vigour than ever, and entered into negotiations with the pope on the subject. During the latter half of 1262 Edmund, who was in Paris with his brother, was known in England to be doing his best to overthrow the provisions of Oxford. He expressed great displeasure on hearing in 1263 that Urban IV was likely to annul the grant of the Sicilian kingdom, and on 29 July the pope wrote to him and his father pointing out that the conditions of the grant had not been fulfilled, and declaring that the matter was at an end. During his virtual captivity Henry sent on behalf of himself and his son an explicit renunciation of all claim to the kingdom. Edmund appears to have been in Paris during the civil war, and was engaged in 1264 in assisting his mother to raise an army for the invasion of England. After the battle of Evesham he returned home with his mother, and was among the number of the magnates who urged the king to adopt the sweeping measure of confiscation determined on in the parliament of Winchester, being moved, it was believed, by the desire of enriching himself. He had a large share of the spoils, being created Earl of Leicester, and receiving the stewardship of the kingdom in October, and in November the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan. The next year he had grants of all the goods of Robert Ferrers, earl of Derby, and of the honour of Derby, and on 30 July 1267 was created Earl of Lancaster, and received the honour of Monmouth. In June 1266 he commanded a division of the royal army at the siege of Kenilworth, and when the castle surrendered the king gave it to him. In 1267 he was appointed to treat with Llewelyn of Wales, and during the latter part of the year joined his brother in holding a number of tournaments [see under Edward I].
In common with his brother and other magnates, Lancaster look the cross at the parliament held at Northampton in June 1268. On 13 Oct. 1269 he assisted at the translation of Edward the Confessor at Westminster. His marriage in April 1270 with Aveline de Fortibus, daughter and heiress of William, earl of Albemarle (d. 1260), brought him great wealth, and the expectation of much more, for his bride's mother was Isabel, sister and heiress of Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon (d. 1262), but Aveline did not live to succeed to her mother's inheritance. In the spring of 1271 Lancaster went to Palestine with a body of crusaders; he joined his brother, and was with him at Acre. Returning home before Edward, he reached England in December 1272, shortly after his
